Sign in with Facebook
Typhoon and Other Tales
This volume contains "Typhoon," "The Secret Sharer," "Falk," and "Amy Foster." "Typhoon," a story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest, is a masterpiece of descriptive virtuosity and moral irony, while "The Secret Sharer" excels in symbolic ambiguity. Both stories vividly present Conrad's abiding preoccupation with the theme of solidarity, challenged from without...more
Paperback, 242 pages
Published
January 15th 2009
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published 1914)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
728)
Conrad’s novella, TYPHOON, is even more astonishing than I remember: “Captain McWhirr had sailed over the surface of the oceans as some men so skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror. There are on sea and land such men thus fortunate—or thus disdained by destiny or by the sea.” It is a marvel of action prose, among its other virtues. Free f...more
Joseph Conrad always surprises me, and whatever I've read most recently always seems like the best of the lot. This book offers a number of short trips to that status.
Albert Guerard, the editor, rightly calls the third chapter of The Nigger of the Narcissus, which recounts the storm around the Cape of Good Hope "one of the summits of English prose," though I was more struck by the first and last chapters, which capture the eerie transition of the ship and its crew from their land to their sea...more
Albert Guerard, the editor, rightly calls the third chapter of The Nigger of the Narcissus, which recounts the storm around the Cape of Good Hope "one of the summits of English prose," though I was more struck by the first and last chapters, which capture the eerie transition of the ship and its crew from their land to their sea...more
Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. It made me want to read everything by Conrad. It's easy, but dense reading. I especially loved An Outpost of Progress and The Nigger of the "Narcissus". These were what I felt to be the darkest of the stories in the book. It's amazing how he slowly and subtly illuminated the characters contradictions between thoughts and actions, their selfishness, and their blindness to their own hypocrisies and lack of awareness of their emotions and motives. And of course the...more
Typhoon reminded me forcefully of what a great writer Conrad is and how much I wish to know everything he wrote. Humor, action and memorable characters; vivid word pictures which put you on board the endangered ship suffering the storm's fury and an elegant satiric wrapping up left me glad to have read this small masterpiece.
Not my favorite of Conrad's novellas, but still pretty fantastic. The descriptions of the storm are unforgettable. And the characterization of MacWhirr, the stolid, unimaginative captain, is sly and funny (which isn't as rare for Conrad as you might think). Recommended.
Enlightening read... Highly recommended.. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of all time. Nice to read short stories not often seen or even heard of.. Highly recommended
Chris will yell at me if I put this on the 'read' list, so I'll keep it on 'to read.' I read "Typhoon" and "Amy Foster" which were both brilliantly written, engaging stories, although I enjoyed "Amy Foster" the most.
Typhoon - totally awesome sea story. Mental pictures invoked when I read it are still recallable. Wow. You'll never forget it if you have any experience at sea.
I got this volume for "Typhoon" and "The Secret Sharer" but it gets 4 stars rather than 3 on the basis of "Amy Foster" which is a truly remarkable short story.
Dec 18, 2011
Mowena Glunch
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
nautical-fiction
Love this book, now my third read. Love this particular edition. The facial expression conveys the entire personality Conrad had conjured up in my mind.
Man and nature, the battle. Conrd is such a good writer and does so well with this short story.
Dec 07, 2011
Lynda
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Lynda by:
Read in college
Shelves:
classics
Typhoon and the Secret Sharer are the best stories in this collection.
Fun adventures and intriguing psychological sketches.
The Secret Sharer is great!
Joseph Conrad is as good in short stories as the novels. I liked those marine stuff. It's connected with that part of Conrad's life, when he was working at ships.
If you like Conrad, especially Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, you should definitely read this. Great sea stories. Falk is my favorite out of these.
Jul 06, 2011
Stephanie
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
classic-1900s,
2011
library book. typhoon made me think of perfect storm. lots of sea talk, but still engrossing.
Makes for uncomfortable reading on the bus.
Oct 25, 2010
Jeremy Hauck
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-long-time-ago
Amy Foster. What a story.
Fiction,Classic,Anthology
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Joseph Conrad (born
Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
) was a Polish-born English novelist who today is most famous for Heart of Darkness, his fictionalized account of Colonial Africa.
Conrad left his native Poland in his middle teens to avoid conscription into the Russian Army. He joined the French Merchant Marine and briefly employed himself as a wartime gunrunner. He then began to work aboard Bri...more
More about Joseph Conrad...
Conrad left his native Poland in his middle teens to avoid conscription into the Russian Army. He joined the French Merchant Marine and briefly employed himself as a wartime gunrunner. He then began to work aboard Bri...more
Share This Book
1 trivia question
More quizzes & trivia...
